'Second Amendment Remedies' Are Back In Style

Opinion | thepilot.com

Hey, look! “Second Amendment remedies” are back!

You may remember that charming little catchphrase from the 2010 campaign of tea party-backed Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada.

She told a radio host that “if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?’”

Nice, huh? Sort of like saying, “Nice democracy you got there. Be a real shame if anything happened to it.” Angle’s thinly veiled threat of armed insurrection was a major reason she got her hat handed to her by Harry Reid.

But you just can’t keep the Revolution down, it seems, because nothing gets the “Real America’s” juices flowing like threatening armed revolt against the United States if they don’t get their political way.

This past Tuesday, in Wilmington, N.C., Russian-backed sleeper agent and Republican nominee Donald Trump decided to throw in his lot with the insurrectionists: “If (Clinton) gets to pick her judges,” he said, “nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Now, to be fair, he may not have been talking about an armed uprising. He may have just been talking about shooting Clinton in the head. You know, watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and all.

And to think just the day before, the hacks of our so-called liberal media were falling all over themselves to talk about Trump’s pivot to being “more presidential” because he managed to get through a prepared economics speech without insulting the family of a dead hero or kicking a baby out of the hall. A day later, he’s going full Cliven Bundy.

We all know where it plays out from here, of course. Trump, the guy who his supporters love because he says what he means, will insist he didn’t mean what he said. (Hat tip to my friend and local boy Julian Long for that one.)

In fact, Trump now claims that his reference to the Second Amendment had nothing to do with “bearing arms” against the United States. Just like when Henry II asked, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” he didn’t really mean for his knights to actually kill the Archbishop. Guess what? No one bought that story either.

As for Trump’s rapidly dwindling cadre of hardcore backers, they’ll respond as they always do: not by defending the indefensible Trump, but by raving even louder about Clinton’s emails, Benghazi, and Vincent Foster.

The “both sides do it” crowd that infests our so-called liberal media will attempt to use some statement of anger and disgust by some liberal blogger to try to convince us it’s exactly the same thing when the presidential nominee from the Republican Party suggests that keeping and bearing arms against an elected U.S. president might be a viable option if you disapprove of the president’s judicial nominees.

Of course, she may not even get a chance to nominate anyone, if Republican strategist and Trump insider Roger Stone’s warnings come true.

Referring to Trump’s expression of concern that the election is “going to be rigged,” Stone told Breitbart.com, “He’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. We will not stand for it.” Mr. Stone did not explain how one has a nonviolent “bloodbath.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s fellow Republicans continue to jump ship. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins published an Op-Ed in The Washington Post saying that she could not support Putin’s preferred candidate because “Mr. Trump lacks the temperament, self-discipline and judgment required to be president.”

Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell left the Virginia Beach Republican Party to endorse Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Wadi Gaitan, communications director for the Florida GOP, stepped down to promote “free market solutions while avoiding efforts that support Donald Trump.”

Fifty former national security officials, Republicans all, signed on to a letter saying that they are convinced that Donald Trump “would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

The signatories included retired Gen. Michael Hayden (George W. Bush’s former CIA and NSA director); former Homeland Security Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge; and former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills. But I’m sure a former reality show host knows better than those folks.

Sigh. I didn’t want to write about Trump again. I really didn’t. You can ask my wife.

But Comrade Trump’s continued implosion is the train wreck you can’t look away from.

I just hope it doesn’t wreck us all.

THE GOBSHITES SPEAK: Pathological liar and obsessive gun-humper Frank Staples, who posts incessantly under the alias "skylinefirepest" absolutely cannot see a mention of guns in any column without going off on one of his unhinged rants, and this column was no exception. I'll spare you most of his slobbering, but this part really caught my eye:

"You know, I don't really like the man BUT I will vote for a crazy man over a criminal any day! "

Yeah, well, like cleaves to like, I suppose. 

And When You Lose Control, You'll Reap The Harvest You Have Sown

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

You know, you can say what you like about Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Sen. Jim Webb and that dude from Maryland whose name escapes me right now, but at least for the moment they’re campaigning like grownups. In contrast, look at some of the wacky antics of the Republicans:

John McCain calls Donald Trump’s supporters “crazies.” Trump shoots back that McCain’s really not a war hero because “he got captured. I like people who didn’t get captured.” Lindsey Graham responds by telling Trump to stop being a “jackass.” Trump turns on Graham and calls him an “idiot” and a “lightweight.”

Rick Perry calls “Trumpism” a “mix of demagoguery and nonsense,” whereupon Trump says Rick Perry’s “only wearing glasses to try and look smart.” Ted Cruz calls Mitch McConnell a “liar,” whereupon McConnell tells Cruz his mama’s so ugly they’ve got to tie a pork chop around her neck to get the dog to play with her.

OK, I made that last bit up. But it does seem as if the party that at least tried to market itself as serious adult leadership for America during the Reagan years is acting these days like a bunch of poorly socialized 13-year-olds sniping at each other on Twitter.

The coarsening of dialogue between the Republican candidates has been described by some pundits as “the Trump effect.” Some candidates see Trump’s poll numbers increase with every bullying sneer and insult and think, “Hey, I need to get me some of that.”

But The Donald is merely reaping the harvest that’s been sown over the past 20 years by talk radio and the Internet, where the competition for ears and eyeballs has become so intense that wingnut politicians seem to be straining their brains trying to find something to say more horrible and outrageous than the last thing.

It’s what the Internet calls “trolling”: trying to shock and enrage in order to get attention, even if it’s of the negative kind. It’s an environment in which supposed “pundits” like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin get air time and book contracts because “they make liberals angry.” It’s a climate of drama and hysteria, in which every political defeat simply must be portrayed as the exact same thing as the Holocaust. Or slavery. Or both.

Witness, for example, Mike Huckabee’s ridiculous claim that the multilateral Iran nuclear deal is, and I quote, “marching Israel to the door of the oven,” a line which even the Anti-Defamation League called “completely out of line and unacceptable” and the Israeli ambassador said was “inappropriate.” But hey, it got headlines — and, Huckabee is no doubt praying, the same bump in the polls that Trump gets whenever he comes out with something that makes people look at each other and go, “Did he really say that?”

For years, the Republican Party has turned a blind eye to, and occasionally even embraced, the crudest attacks on its opponents, from Congressman Dan Burton referring to then-President Bill Clinton as a “scumbag” on the floor of the House to Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” and demanding that he be allowed to watch her have sex if the health insurance for which she worked and paid was required to cover birth control.

All this time, of course, these same Republicans would fall onto their fainting couches and clutch at their pearls in distress at the mildest harsh language directed at them. It’s more than a little ironic that many of the same people who cry like little girls over “name-calling” now embrace Trump, the candidate who’s made it his campaign strategy.

The rhetorical monster the GOP has nurtured is now fully grown and, as monsters do, it’s escaped the lab and is attacking its creators. Add to this the fecklessness of the so-called party leadership as exemplified in the utterly ineffectual Orange John Boehner and the equally helpless Mitch McConnell, and you have the perfect recipe for the current disarray in the GOP.

So who will benefit the most from the chaos? Obviously, whoever ends up with the Democratic nomination. Right now, that still looks like Hillary Clinton. On the Republican side, however, you’ve got two candidates — former Ohio governor Jon Kasich and John Ellis Bush, aka JEB! — trying to position themselves as the grownups in the race.

Will either emerge to give Mrs. Clinton a serious run, or will they be eaten by the GOP rage monster, leaving the nomination to one of the “crazies” who’ll alienate the general electorate and hand the presidency to the Dem nominee?

Stay tuned. But my money’s on the monster.

Chris Christie: EBOLA FIGHTER!

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to the Thrilling Radio Hour. Tonight, we bring you another slam-bang episode of our most popular show — “Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter”! Brought to you by Panicwear, the last word in stylish hazmat suits for the whole family! Dad, Mom, even the kiddies, will look and feel their best in these full-body suits designed for Panicwear by Ralph Lauren. Remember, if it’s not Panicwear, you’re gonna die horribly! AAAAAAHHHHHH! Now, on to our story…

As our show opens, Gov. Christie is waiting on the tarmac at Newark Airport, along with his faithful aide and sidekick Wazoo.

WAZOO: De plane, Boss! De plane!

CHRISTIE: I see it, Wazoo. Get ready. We’re about to face our most dangerous enemy.

WAZOO: Another ethics investigation, boss?

CHRISTIE: No, Wazoo, even worse. There’s a nurse on that plane. And she’s been in Africa!

WAZOO: A nurse? Africa? Oy gevalt, boss!

CHRISTIE: Wait, when did you start speaking Yiddish?

WAZOO: Hey, is it my fault the scriptwriters could never settle on my exact ethnicity?

CHRISTIE: Never mind, Wazoo. Here she comes.

ANNOUNCER: As the nurse exits the plane, Gov. Christie steps forward, hand raised bravely.

CHRISTIE: Stop right there!

NURSE: What? Hey, aren’t you …

CHRISTIE: That’s right, filthy disease carrier. It is I! Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter! (MUSIC FANFARE) And I quarantine you in the name of the law!

NURSE: But … I don’t have Ebola! I don’t even have a fever!

CHRISTIE: That’s exactly what you’d say if you did have Ebola! Wazoo, to the quarantine tent with her!

WAZOO: You got it, boss!

NURSE: No! Wait! Aaaah!

ANNOUNCER: As Gov. Christie turns away from his vanquished foe, an interfering busybody steps up.

BUSYBODY: Excuse me sir, are you a doctor?

CHRISTIE: I don’t need to be a doctor! I am Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter! (MUSIC FANFARE)

BUSYBODY: I thought not. If you were, you’d know that there’s no danger of Ebola infection from someone not showing symptoms. And only then if you have contact with bodily fluids from an infected person.

CHRISTIE: Hold on there, pal! Are you a doctor?

BUSYBODY: As a matter of fact, I am. An infectious disease specialist, actually.

CHRISTIE: And did you just get off a plane from Africa?

BUSYBODY: No, Amsterdam.

CHRISTIE: Close enough. You didn’t think Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter (MUSIC FANFARE) would know that there are flights from Africa to Amsterdam? Your cunning plan to infect the populace has failed! Take him away!

WAZOO: Yes, boss.

BUSYBODY: Wait! No! Aaaah!

CHRISTIE: Hmmph. Silly liberals and their “degrees.” And their “geography.” Don’t they know I have leadership to display?

WAZOO: Hey, boss, we got a problem …

CHRISTIE: Wait! All those little men. In uniform. What are they doing here?!

WAZOO: Ummm … that’s a Boy Scout troop from Ottumwa, Iowa. They’re getting ready to fly back home after visiting New York.

CHRISTIE: New York?! There’s Ebola there! Quarantine them immediately!

WAZOO: But there’s no more room in the tent, boss! That’s the problem I was trying to tell you about!

CHRISTIE: What!? Well, then, wrap those Boy Scouts head-to-foot in Saran Wrap!

WAZOO: They’ll suffocate, boss! And the people already in the quarantine tent have cellphones! They’ve gotten hold of the media!

CHRISTIE: Not to worry, Wazoo! The media love me. I help them preserve the fiction that my whole party hasn’t gone off the deep end.

WAZOO: I’m not sure this is helping, boss. But they’re also contacting civil rights lawyers. Something about you not having the authority to lock people up just on your word. Especially when there’s zero evidence that they’re actually sick.

CHRISTIE: But I’m Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter!

(LONG PAUSE)

CHRISTIE: Hey! Where’s my music fanfare?

WAZOO: The trumpet player got quarantined, boss. Turns out he has a great-aunt in Mozambique. There’s no Ebola there, but, you know, you can’t be too careful.

CHRISTIE: (Sighs heavily) Oh, all right. Let everyone go. But be sure we do a press release telling everyone I’m still right about everything.

WAZOO: Yes, boss.

ANNOUNCER: Tune in next week for another episode of Thrilling Radio Hour! Next week’s installment: Chris Christie, Ebola Fighter, meets ISIS! And remember: if you’re not in constant fear, you’re not a real American! Good night, and God help us all!

THE GOBSHITES RESPOND: Weekly commentator "Francis", who often has his response up within fifteen minutes of the column being posted on the Pilot's website, responds in the fashion we've come to expect from the Party of Love:
Some deserve a long agonizing death, not quick, but slow and painful, then they too will understand just how those who have contacted this virus felt before dying, sorta of takes the humor out of the subject don't ya think.[sic]

But don't forget folks, it's the liberals who are filled with hate. 

Yeah, You're Just Full of Christ's Love.

Right Wing Watch:

Austin Ruse runs an outfit called the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. According to his bio, "He has briefed members of the U.S. House and Senate on U.N. matters, as well as briefing White House and National Security Council staff. Ruse has also briefed senior government officials, journalists, Church and non-governmental leaders from around the world.He has appeared on a number of national cable network programs discussing UN and Catholic issues, including news programs on CNN, CBS News, MSNBC, and Fox News. Ruse has published in First Things, Washington Times, National Review Online, Weekly Standard, Human Events, Touchstone, as well as newspapers around the world."

So last week he goes on American Family Radio and has this to say about the story of the Duke student who revealed that she's putting herself through college by appearing as an adult-film actress:

That is the nonsense that they teach in women’s studies at Duke University, this is where she learned this. The toxic stew of the modern university is gender studies, it’s “Sex Week,” they all have “Sex Week” and teaching people how to be sex-positive and overcome the patriarchy. My daughters go to a little private religious school and we pay an arm and a leg for it precisely to keep them away from all of this kind of nonsense. I do hope that they go to a Christian college or university and to keep them so far away from the hard left, human-hating people that run modern universities, who should all be taken out and shot.

Got that? This good Christian Right Winger, whose organization's mission statement says their purpose is "to defend life and family at international institutions," advocates the execution of people with whom he disagrees.

Remind me again of who the fascists are in American politics?

Then, when Right Wing Watch reported Ruse's words verbatim, he lashed out again:

“The pajama boys over at Right Wing Watch have their panties all in a twist about what I said, and I sometimes think that the left is really dumb, these are the low-information voters that make all of these mistakes when they get into the ballot box and all of these mistakes as they go through their lives and one of the reasons is because they are so dumb,” he said.

So after calling people "dumb" and "pajama boys" (whatever the hell that means in wingnutspeak), he "criticized them as “smear merchants” who “call [people] names.”

The Party of Love, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sure the Church is proud of its defenders.

The Party of Love, Once Again

Maine Town Official Visited  By Secret Service For Posting "Shoot The Nigger" Over a Picture Of President Obama

"What I really meant to say is, 'When are we going to get rid of this (expletive),'" Marsters added. "I should have said, 'I hope the bastard dies.'"

Oh, that's much better. 

But don't ever forget, it's the liberals who are filled with hate. 

This is Outreach?

Latest Newspaper Column: The Pilot Newspaper


It’s pretty much accepted wisdom at this point that, in order to succeed on a national level, the Republican Party is going to have to broaden its appeal.

As South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham put it, “The demographics race we’re losing badly. We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

So what are conservative Republicans doing to expand their appeal on the national level?

Well, you have Phyllis Schlafly of the right-wing Eagle Forum going on conservative radio and explaining that it’s useless to try to reach out to Latinos because they don’t “have any Republican inclinations at all,” and “they’re running an illegitimacy rate that’s just about the same as the blacks are.”

Further, she said, Latinos “come from a country where they have no experience with limited government. And the types of rights we have in the Bill of Rights, they don’t understand that at all. You can’t even talk to them about what the Republican principle is.”

Perhaps someone can explain to Mrs. Schlafly, first off, that Latinos don’t come from “a country.” There is no country called Latinostan. Also, they can explain to her that insulting, en masse, the fastest-growing voting group in the U.S. is the path to political extinction.

Meanwhile, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Off His Meds) defended his opposition to immigration reform and asserted that Latinos won’t punish the GOP at the ballot box with this gem: “I think you will see people start waking up and go, ‘Wow, I’m Hispanic and these Republicans really like me. … Wow, this Republican really does want me to do well. That’s the party I ought to be in!”



Yeah, Louie, let me know how that condescending and paternalistic attitude works out for you. Of course, this is the guy who once berated the attorney general for casting “aspersions on his asparagus,” much to the confusion of all in the hearing room, so maybe he’s jockeying for Michele Bachmann’s soon-to-be-vacant position as Head Loony of the Republican Caucus.



Don’t worry, ladies — the Republican Party hasn’t forgotten you! Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz., of course) recently demonstrated, once again, the GOP’s ignorance of female anatomy by confidently asserting that exceptions from abortion restrictions in case of rape are unnecessary because such pregnancies are “rare.” He apparently forgot that ignorant BS like that cost the GOP a Senate seat less than a year ago.

During the recent debacle in Texas, where the legislature came back especially to pass a restrictive abortion law, Republican legislator Jodie Lautenberg struck a blow for gender equality in the area of ignorance by claiming that emergency rooms have “rape kits” that “clean women out” (for the record, the rape kits are for collecting criminal evidence). Scottie Nell Hughes, director of the Tea Party News Network, went on TV saying that rape victims who end resulting pregnancies should serve the same jail time as their rapists. And the beat goes on.

Of course, there are some who say that there’s no need for outreach, that “angry white guys” are enough to carry them to the White House and control of the Senate. I invite those people to compare and contrast a pair of events that happened right here this past week in North Carolina. They are the latest “Moral Monday” protest on the Halifax Mall behind the General Assembly building and the “Thankful Tuesday” counter-demonstration the next evening.According to The News & Observer, the police estimated 2,000 attendees at the Moral Monday protest. Organizers pegged the number at closer to 5,000. The Tuesday protest, on the other hand, drew a mere 200 people, holding signs that said, “Stop Abortion Now,” and “Thank you [Gov. Pat] McCrory.”

So, even using the lowest estimate, 10 times as many people turned out to protest the General Assembly’s current path as turned out to support it. And the pictures from the event really tell the tale: The Moral Monday folks are a strikingly diverse group, of all ages and races. The TT’s … not so much. They are, shall we say, ethnically homogenous, and not one of them looks younger than 60.

Of course, the generally low turnout for TT may be because right now even a lot of sane Republicans are getting disgusted with the General Assembly’s full-steam-ahead efforts to enact a radical right-wing social agenda at the expense of little details like a state budget.

Maybe they’d get better turnout if they called for a “Stop Futzing Around and Pass a Budget Already Tuesday.” Granted, it doesn’t roll as trippingly off the tongue, but I think it accurately sums up the frustration I’m hearing from Republican friends of the non-insane variety.  I know the GOP isn’t listening to me, but maybe it could listen to them.

Life Of Illusion (The Director's Cut)

Latest Newspaper Column: 

[Note: this is the unedited version. The one in the paper eliminates the first paragraphs because the editor was afraid the Party of Love might firebomb the newspaper office.] 

So now, at long last, the election is over, and President Barack Obama will have his second term. Before we get to our discussion of what happened and why, let me just take the time to say: HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

Ahem. On to the post-election analysis.

I’ve said before that Mitt Romney was destined to be the John Kerry of the Republican Party. Each man was a rich, entitled Massachusetts moderate trying to convince his party's skeptical base he was one of them, despite having once supported the thing that that base purported to despise most (the Iraq War in Kerry's case, the individual mandate in Romney's). Both Kerry and Romney ran against controversial incumbents, with a central message that amounted to “I’m not him.” And both fell short. But Mitt Romney fell much shorter than Kerry. Why? Perhaps because the “him” Romney was running against didn’t exist.

The imaginary Barack Obama that the Republicans were running against bore little or no resemblance to the actual man in the White House. Imaginary Obama was a scowling, far-left radical, a socialist, a fascist or a communist, depending on who was yelling into the mike at the time. Imaginary Obama was simultaneously an evil schemer who was plotting 24/7 to destroy America and a guy who was too dumb to get into college without affirmative action or to speak without a teleprompter. Imaginary Obama was a divisive, harshly partisan figure, hated by all, even his former supporters. Worst of all, he was an incompetent, a miserable failure at absolutely everything he touched.

The problem with this strategy is that the actual Barack Obama that non-delusional people could see was a smart, calm, moderate with good likability ratings who’d brought the unemployment numbers down at a steady if sometimes maddeningly slow pace, saved the auto industry, and brought Osama bin Laden to justice. People heard the Right dismissing every bit of good news, crying doom and gloom, and insisting “everything’s getting worse,” looked around, and went, “hmmm, it really isn’t.”

Then along came Sandy. The quick Presidential response to the hurricane and the grateful reaction of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who only a few weeks before had been savaging Obama at the GOP convention, blew away any lingering doubts non-delusional voters may have had about both the President’s competence and his ability to work with Republicans.

As the polls showed the President pulling further and further ahead in crucial swing states, Republicans began pulling the blanket of delusion over their heads. Pundits like Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Michael Barone and even the usually sane George W. Will predicted a Romney landslide, with Will predicting 321 EVs for Romney.

 One expects this sort of thing from hacks like Morris, Barone and Rove, but Will really should have known better. The polls were “skewed,” they insisted, because they assumed that Democratic voter turnout would be the same in 2012 as it was in 2008. That wasn’t going to happen this year, they asserted with the all the misguided and uninformed bravado of a latter-day George Armstrong Custer.

Actually, had you asked earlier in the year, I might have said you had a point. There were a lot of disaffected Democrats, particularly on the Left. (Anyone who says liberals all think the same has clearly never been around any). But that was before the GOP, some of its prominent supporters, and its candidates began taking extreme radical positions on things like abortion, contraception, gay rights, and immigration, and saying things that frightened, offended or ticked off Latinos, LGBT people, African-Americans, and especially women. That fired up the very constituencies the GOP had told themselves would stay home.

So thanks, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, Todd Akin, Rick Santorum, John Koster, Richard Mourdock, etc.! You fired liberals up and damaged the GOP brand with moderates, probably for years. And right wingers, dwelling as they do in their tightly woven cocoons where only Fox News and talk radio can penetrate, never even saw it. They still don’t. But numbers really don’t lie.

Now that the Republican leadership has failed in their stated number one goal of making Barack Obama a “one term president,” what will they do? Will they actually start pushing bills other than futile grandstanding attempts to “repeal Obamacare”? Will they actually deal in good faith on the budget?

Well, we live in hope. But first they’re going to have to do is stop deluding themselves that everyone hates the President and the Democrats as much as they think they do and that they’ll be rewarded for obstructionism. Reality, it’s said, has a well-known liberal bias, but it’s still reality. 

The Party of Love Is At It Again

Officials investigating complaints of Obama effigy outside NC voting site - Politics - NewsObserver.com

State election officials are looking into reports that a truck pulled into the parking lot outside an early voting site this morning in Goldsboro towing a trailer displaying effigies of President Barack Obama, Gov. Bev Perdue and other officials, all hanging from nooses.

The contraption, which also showed effigies of a judge and law enforcement officials, was reportedly displayed outside the Wayne County Public Library on Ash Street, a one-stop early voting site. Election workers have little jurisdiction beyond the buffer zone around voting sites.

But let's not forget...it's the Liberals who are filled with hate. 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/11/01/2454690/officials-investigating-complaints.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy

The Border Was Just Asking For It

I have seen some crazy and offensive shit posted at  my local paper's website, but this post, by a drooling idiot hiding behind the moniker 101jackson, takes the cake, as he responds to my latest column by equating illegal immigration with rape:

Rape in this country is not as widespread as the Democrats make it out to be, unless you want to consider the illegals penetrating our borders, now that is rape, or the fact that they also have been getting tax refunds through fraud, again that is rape being carried out by the same illegals who raped us the first time by sneaking in, well come to think of it we are getting raped repeatably and it seems the Democrats are loving it since they just lay down spread our border patrols out so thin making forceable entry seem like it is conscensual. And again Obama will hold us down and for a few more votes pull down our pants. Why do you refrain from the immigration topic when making your weekly speech?

The Party of Love: you can always depend on them.  No wonder they're losing among women. 

(Post title courtesy of  Nic Rhoades)

When the Clowns Turned Mean

I see Newt the Magic Wingnut got his behind kicked in Florida, but he vows to continue the fight. Excellent.

See, I know it's the conventional wisdom that after the nomination, everyone kisses and makes up. This is usually possible because the nastiest things that one campaign says about the other are done by surrogates or staffers. But I don't recall the candidates themselves getting quite this nasty and personal with one another. This isn't Bush I calling Reagan's plans "voodoo economics". This is Newt flat out calling Romney a liar, and Romney calling Newt unethical. They're both right, of course, but I don't see this leading to a rousing chorus of "Kum Ba Yah" at the convention.

Now, it is true, that after Obama sewed up the nomination, a contingent of unhinged Clinton supporters (known as PUMAs, for "Party Unity My Ass") were very noisy and bitter. But the main difference between the Republicans and the Democrats these days is that the Democrats haven't put their farthest fringes in control of the party (anyone who tells you Obama is a "leftist" clearly doesn't know any real leftists). The clowns have been running the GOP circus for a while now, and it's never pretty when clowns turn mean.

The Party of (Conditional) Love

Latest Newspaper Column

As you know, I call the Republican Party the "Party of Love," since it's an article of faith with them that it's the liberals who are filled with hate.

Unlike, say, Republican state delegate and Senate Candidate Bob Marshall of Virginia, who said recently that children with disabilities are God's punishment on women who have had abortions. (Sarah Palin has been notably silent on that particular insult to her Down syndrome baby.)

Or the Republican speaker of the Kansas House who urged people to pray to God, in the words of Psalm 109:8, that President Obama's "days be few, that his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." Some enterprising Republican entrepreneurs have even made this a bumper sticker.

Yes, the right is filled right to the brim with love. But it seems that right-wing love is a conditional thing.

- Right-wingers love the troops, unless they turn out to be gay, or report war crimes, or start speaking out against a war the right wing loved and cheered for.

At least they loved the war until a Democrat became president, at which point the war they cheered for becomes that president's fault and something that should have been ended yesterday.

- Right-wingers love the Constitution, except the parts that grant citizenship to people who were born here.

They also aren't all that crazy about the parts that give the right to counsel or to a jury trial to people accused of crimes, or the parts that don't allow the government to just read your mail or tap your phones without any oversight whenever they feel enough concern about your activities. Unless the president is a Democrat, and then they're suddenly very, very concerned about these things.

But they still don't want jury trials for cases where someone was injured by a doctor's or a corporation's negligent acts. Those juries are "out of control."

- Right-wingers love free speech and the right of free assembly, so long as it's exercised by older white people wearing teabags on their hats. Anyone else is either an anarchist or a dirty, flag-burning hippie who needs to get one of those jobs they say don't exist because it's the president's fault.

- Right-wingers love the idea of cutting government spending, unless it's cuts to money spent on them, which they don't consider spending at all.

- Right-wingers love the idea of cutting taxes, but only if you're talking about cutting taxes on the wealthy. A tax plan that raises taxes on the poor and middle class is just fine with them. In fact, one of the right's biggest gripes now is that not enough poor people are paying federal income tax.

- Right-wingers love "family values" and demand that politicians practice marital fidelity. But only if the politicians are Democrats. Republicans who conduct years-long affairs with staffers, and who ditch their wives because "they're not young or pretty enough, and besides she has cancer," are fine.

In fact, even bringing up those affairs is "appalling," because, after all, Bill Clinton had affairs. The fact that Bill Clinton had affairs, however, is itself so appalling that it must be brought up at every opportunity.

- Right-wingers love the rich and successful and think they deserve credit for their hard work and innovation. Unless those rich and successful people are George Soros, Warren Buffett, or anyone who made their money in the entertainment industry who doesn't vote Republican. Those people should just shut up.

George Orwell, in his novel "1984," described a party that maintained its grip on power by a rigorous adherence to the principle called "doublethink."

Doublethink was described as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary."

Well, it certainly has become indispensable to the American right wing. No wonder so many of them go crazy.